World Trade Center pieces arrive for 9-11 memorial in Miramar

Sun-Sentinel ^ | May 23, 2011 | Amy Beth Bennett and Ariel Barhurst

[TheDingoAteMyBaby]

A special shipment of 8,200 pounds of steel that once held up the World Trade Center arrived Monday morning at Miramar City Hall amid clapping and some tears.

The two beams were salvaged from the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks and will become part of a 9-11 memorial to be completed in 2012 behind City Hall. The design will encompass all three crash sites, with the steel as the centerpiece.

Miramar police officer Michael Yepez, a New York City police officer at the time of the attacks, said he saw the second plane hit the tower as he was coming into the Brooklyn precinct that day.

"It was a feeling of emptiness, because I knew at that point, it wasn't an accident."

Yepez worked for a solid 48 hours doing first aid, search and rescue and crowd control.

Tearing up as he looked at the pile on the truck he said, "I could have been standing on top of that piece looking for people."

Yepez escorted the flatbed truck the final miles from Interstate 75 and Commercial Boulevard. He described looking in the rearview mirror and remembering seeing similar trucks transporting equally precious cargo to Staten Island, where he was living when the terrorist attacks took place.

"It felt like 10 years ago, something I would see every day. Anytime anybody mentions Sept. 11, you will see the hairs on my arms raise."

The steel comes from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center's wreckage and has granted pieces to 1,112 countries, cities, counties, schools and police or fire departments, said spokesman Steven Cole.

Forty-four of those pieces will be memorialized across Florida.

[danamco]

I hope they will fall on the toes of Mayor Lori Moseley with whom I have a feud with!!!